He allowed himself to be overwhelmed by sentiment and bitterness in criticising an order of political and legal precedence which he contributed actively to establish
The Democratic Front (TDF) has described the position of the immediate past Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, on the endorsement of President Bola Tinubu as hypocritical, dishonest and deceptive.
In a statement signed by its Chairman, Mallam Danjuma Muhammad and Secretary, Chief Wale Adedayo, the group wondered why he did not express a similar sentiment when former President Muhammadu Buhari got a similar endorsement in 2017.
“We are startled by what is clearly a self-indictment by the former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami when he unabashedly condemned the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the recent endorsement of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for re-election in 2027.
“It is shocking because Malami seemed to have forgotten his position in the APC administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari under similar circumstances.
“But just in case he has forgotten, we need to remind him of how multiple APC stakeholders in 2017 endorsed Buhari for a second term in office. It was done one after the other, from state to state
“So for us, he allowed himself to be overwhelmed by sentiment and bitterness in criticising an order of political and legal precedence which he contributed actively to establish when he was the number one law officer of the nation,” it added.
The group also drew attention to the position of the Electoral Act on the matter.
“The APC summit of May 22, 2025, which endorsed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu through consensus of all party stakeholders, drew its legal strength and wisdom from the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended).
“Section 84 (2) of the Electoral Act provides that the procedure for nominating candidates by political parties for various elective positions shall be by direct, indirect primaries or consensus.
“The act further expatiates on consensus candidacy as a system whereby every other aspirant voluntarily steps down and endorses the candidature of a single aspirant. So, what did APC do differently?
“We recall that the electoral act was amended after a heated political debate by the National Assembly in 2022 to allow for a consensus (endorsement) system as a procedure for party primaries. It is interesting and perhaps hypocritical that Malami was the Attorney-General who formerly advised his principal, former President Buhari, to give his assent to the amendment of the electoral act.
“Considering the role he played in the inclusion of consensus, as an optional procedure for nominating a political party candidate for an election in the act, it is unethical of Malami to now turn around and condemn a legitimate political norm which he established as Nigeria’s Minister of Justice in 2022.”
On Malami’s allusion to the state of the nation, the group also reminded him that the war against insurgency and economic recession did not stop his principal from pursuing a second term in office.
It said: Furthermore, Malami degraded himself as a former senior public officer when he unjustifiably alluded to the abdication of responsibility on the part of the Tinubu administration for attending to matters of re-election rather than concentrating on governance.
“TDF wants the former Minister of Justice to know that there is glaring evidence of macroeconomic engineering in the last two years. Also, the successes recorded in fiscal and monetary policy reforms since 2023 have suggested that public governance in Nigeria has never received such overwhelming attention from any other government in history.
“It is preposterous, hypocritical, and self-serving for Malami, who was an influential member of the Buhari administration’s kitchen cabinet, to have seen nothing wrong with the staggered APC primaries that were conducted long before the release of the electoral time-table by INEC in 2018.
“It was at a time the nation’s economy was barely out of recession and at the peak of the war against Boko Haram insurgency compared to President Tinubu’s endorsement under a stable economic environment and a relatively calm security situation.
“We see it as a reflection of the possibility that he has been left out of APC’s power equation.”
TDF urges Nigerians to dismiss Malami’s tirade as the ranting of a disgruntled political element who will stop at nothing to pursue his selfish interest.